Emergency Room Visit (Warning: This is extremely explicit)

I just finished cleaning the last puddle of blood up from the floor. Four hours ago, I was in my bathroom, trimming my hair. I had plans to go and give my grandmother a set (curl & tease special) so she could look her best at the family reunion tomorrow. Later I was planning on going to Speakeasy with Allison to hear Sworn Enemies.

Nicole calls me up and asks if she and Jesse can take me out to dinner for my birthday. I say, sure I’d like that and we settle on Surin.

About 15 minutes later they show up and I’m running around, turning off lights, kenneling Wilco. I turn off the last light in the front room when I hear Zeus, the great dane growl and snap. I turn around and look and Jesse and ask him if he’s ok. And right there, blood started pouring out of two large holes on both sides of his face.

I yell for Nicole and I run to find anything to stop the bleeding. First the paper towels. No, Nicole says. So I run to the back and get some of my spare towels and rush them back to Jesse who is clutching his face with his hands as blood is dripping on the floor.

“Don’t pass out.” I tell myself.

And like a flash we were in the car. We went to St. Vincent’s first but there was an hour and a half wait even though Jesse removed the towels so they could see the damage. Back in the car. We drove to UAB West, and two ladies in the doorway stood - mouths gaping open as Jesse walked by.

“A more appropriate response.” I think to myself

Jesse breezily walks up to the man behind the glass and pulls the towels away saying, “A dog bit my face.”

The man is obviously startled and buzzes us in immediately.

I steal a look at Jesse's face as the nurse is taking his blood pressure and there is a 5 inch gash from his right ear curling into what looks like the Nike swoosh symbol under his lower lip. On the other side, a clear 2 inch flap of skin portruded where the tooth had pierced all the way through his cheek.

Within 15 minutes they’ve got a morphine drip and an antibiotic started and they give him a shot for nausea. They would only let one of us stay in the room, so I excused myself to the waiting room where I called and informed his mother what had happened.

They ended up calling in a plastic surgeon who put in no less than 50 stitches and said that he was lucky the bite had not been any further down or it would have paralyzed his facial muscles. Thankfully the hospital did not want to keep him and turned him loose within the hour. We got his some food and picked up his antibiotics and it was time to head home.

And so after a long night of trauma, Nicole dropped me back off at the house. Zeus greeted me at the door with a pathetic look and nudged me with his head.

“It’s ok buddy,” I say and my eyes settle upon the blood drying in oblong pools on my living room floor.

So I cleaned it up.

And now, I’m writing this, because I’m so fucking wigged out that even talking to Clint didn’t make the shaking stop and I needed an outlet.

So to all of you who get grossed out easily: sorry. I usually do too. Hopefully I won’t have anything like this to write about again for a long time, or maybe ever.